You have no bloody excuse. At all. 16 episodes of perfection, and Gene Hunt is my favorite fictional creation in years. No, not created -- summoned. Gene Hunt is a frikkin' avatar of justice.
Also on Netflix, but as far as I can see, only series 1, which is insane.
Gahh, if you have not seen this yet, I am so jealous of what you are about to experience. NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
LEVERAGE #207 "The Two Live Crew Job" Post-game
Yes, well, I needed sleep.
Oh, and heads up: Trigger warning. Skip the longish ranty bit down in the questions, you should be fine.
216 Comments and questions? Jesus Murphy, I've learned my lesson. Address each episode as quickly as possible before they spiral out on us.
Right, literally every human who comes in to pitch Leverage has pitched some variation of the "Other Crew" story. It was easily the oldest card on the Wall o' Ideas, from first season. You put together the Justice League, and some hard-wired bit of the amygdala demands the presence of the Injustice League. It's Campbellian.
As a result, this was one of the first episodes broken this year. Even before the rest of the writers came back, I was breaking "Beantown", Chris was working on "Order 23", and Berg jammed on "Two Live". She had an outline for the episode, much as it was finally scripted (with some exceptions in the first/second act clue paths) well before most of the other episodes were even pitched.
The problem: it was plainly a mid-season finale. That sort of scale, the stunt-casting ... of course.
But when you've got such a wee writing staff and no prep time thanks to the summer pickup, you need to write the episodes roughly in order of production. Not to mention that we learned of Gina's pregnancy the first week of shooting -- while we'd never worried too much about continuity in S1, in S2 we had to arc her character so we had a good reason for her to depart before she became unshootable.
To her immense credit, "unshootable" was our call, not Gina's. Gina wasn't hesitant to work as long as possible under any conditions. I mean, at one point she she was squeezing 7 months of pre-mommy down ... well that would be telling. But we're not a hospital show, we can't throw her in a surgical gown and have her stand behind gurneys. At some point, some shit is going to blow up, running will be involved, and a body double only goes so far.
Episode 7 made the most sense for her departure, and "Two Live Crew" gave us the best matching plot for that moment. So "Two Live Crew" was shelved -- a heartbreaker when you're already four weeks behind on the normal "John's Backup Plans A Through M Writing Schedule". Berg switched off to a corporate retreat story. That sonuvabitch proved unbreakable (great setting, interesting dynamics, but just didn't work. That's a tease, that sort of story) and so she switched over to "The Fairy Godparents Job".
For those of you who want to join the Sausage-Making Factory, that's a lesson worth learning. Every show has a couple unbreakable episodes cooking around. For all the thousands of pages shot during the life of a show, there's half that again in aborted outlines, broken drafts, and scripts that just couldn't be shot for the budget littering the three-ring binders of the script coordinator. But, as our great Sitcom Forefathers taught us, "We use all the parts of the Buffalo." Pieces of those broken scripts have wound up in the produced episodes of S2 -- hell, sometimes there's nothing but the "CUT TO"s left unplundered.
And so, just a few weeks before it was to be shot, we turned to back to "Two Live Crew." As Berg mentioned in her interview at IF Magazine, she was pretty whipped after coming home from Portland (on-site for #204) and so she was more than amenable for me to jump in and write with her. To tell the truth, I (selfishly) kind of insist on writing the big arc-y scenes for the characters, and with this as Sophie's departure, I was going to be up to my unwanted elbows in it anyway.
The ep as shot is very much as outlined, with two exceptions.
1.) the original 1st/2nd act were much more investigatory, with the team first unwittingly recovering a forgery for the clients (instead of finding Dogs Playing Poker) and then following the clue path through the forger to the Auction House.
2.) Wil Wheaton was a girl.
The problem with 1.) was that we knew it was the "Evil Leverage-verse" episode, all the fun STARTED when the audience knew it was the "Evil Leverage-verse" episode, and yet we didn't really meet them until Act 3. Berg and I got as far as rebreaking to an attempt on Sophie's life, and Downey was the one who actually came up with the funeral idea. Again, Spec-Monkeys, this is why you have a writing staff. Downey's writing attack is "place." Once he's got the setting in his head, he can parse every inch of story and character funny out of it. Much like I crave momentum, Berg craves character emo, Boylan craves big speeches and Rieder craves adorable tiger cubs, it's his first instinct.
Knowing we'd go to the "draw 'em out" funeral in Act Two, that gave us the inspiration for the Big Attempt on Sophie in Act One, and that, backing up, led to the parallel break-ins. So even though our team doesn't meet the "Evil Team of Evil Leverage "until Act 3, the audience has, and is now looking forward to the conflict. Forward momentum with intent.
Full credit to the change in 2.) belongs to Berg. We originally had each member of the Leverage team opposed by a member of the opposite sex. Parker/Apollo (we knew we'd be using Apollo from Day One), Eliot/Sister Kickass, Hardison/HaxorChix, Sophie/Stark. In theory, the Leverage team had the advantage because of Nate. We evolved past that in the outline but those pairing stayed.
While we were casting, it was Berg who suggested "you know, we've been saying over and over again we want a good role for Wil ..." We'd planned on making him a suited villain, but the geek cred he brought to a hacker role was just too good to pass up. We switched the character over, and Wil came on board.
Originally Noa Tishby's character was Asian, but when we opened up the casting choices we saw her tape, found out she'd served in the Israeli Army, and our first intinct was: "That looks like a women who can take a punch. And land one."
(Fun Fact: Noa was the one who saw the potential of the Israeli TV show which became HBO's In Treatment, acquired the rights and brought it to American producers.)
After that, the shoot was breeze. Or, at least, as breezy as it ever is when you shoot a feature film in seven days. I got drunk with Wil a few too many times ("So you're saying your first action post-Singularity ..." "More Land of the Lost episodes." "Not a cure for cancer --" "LAND. OF. THE. LOST!"), Apollo turned out to be a fine and expressive actor, and Sophie's goodbye scene made the PA's cry. (Gina chose the red coat she wore in that final scene btw.)
Let's open up the question box and see what's in there.
@Gwendolen: our Team was able to break into the Anti-Team's hideout to steal the forgeries, why didn't they just steal the first painting (and use the theft at the gallery merely as a distraction)?
"Let's make it five," Stark says, revealing the copies. We establish that only the copies of the second painting are in the warehouse, the first painting is at some undesignated location.
@DISAFAN: Will we be seeing Chaos again? In less than 10-20 I mean. Seems like a fun guy to bring back.
Considering fans are having Wil sign autographs as Chaos, yes, I think he'll be back. And just to answer the maybe 50 questions about this -- yes, you will see these characters again. Season 3 has a ... slightly different vibe.
@Michelle: So Hardison's little 'Yall's nasty" comment .. was that improv or scripted.
Improved, I believe. Although I think he had something else scripted.
@Bardic Lady: 1.)Are we meant to infer that Eliot and Noa Tisby's character have a fling immediately following the episode? 2.)I know I recognize Marlowe and Archer as names from something, but I can't place it right now, can you assist?3.) How on earth is Parker going to deal with Sophie coming back and not going by Sophie anymore? Playing dead was bad enough...
1.) Oh hell yeah. And during parts of it. 2.) Although most people got the Philip Marlowe reference, Sophie's name comes from PI Lew Archer (although Spade's murdered partner in The Maltese Falcon was also named Archer) 3.) It should be an interesting adjustment. For us, too.
@bluehex: I apologize if the question has been asked before, but is Eliot's name a nod to "Hellraiser"
Nope. It's just the most non-punchmeister name Downey and I could come up with.
@ita: The first time they hit the auction house, what was Eliot's job? Apart from fate getting him where he needed to be.
Hey ita!! Eliot's often on the ground during cons as both physical backup and to check on the the real-world conditions of things Hardison has found on his many blueprints.
@Becky: I did like how the wound on Christian's temple was worked into the fight. That was perfect. Was the fight scene filmed before or after he pulled his own stitches out?
After. Please, don't encourage him.
@elcucuyfeo: Now on to the question, I have noticed in flashbacks we always see "lil Parker" Will we see any Lil other team members?
We actually see L'il Nate Ford coming up in the back half of the season.
@Wil Wheaton: When Chaos gets a spin-off, how many robots will live with him in his apartment?
Five, but they're a rotating set of personalities. Different crime crew with Chaos every week!
@Anonymous: Given the lack of honor amongst thieves from Chaos, after getting caught wouldn't he rat everyone out for a reduced sentence?
Try catching them. Big head start, and Hardison covers their trail very, very thoroughly.
@ellinor: When we see Sophie's tombstone the first time, it says Katherine, and the second time, it says Sophie. Are we meant to understand that she had it changed?
Yes. She is burying the identity associated with the name "Sophie Devereaux."
@Gaby: But as Sophie is on the tombstone, will she still be called Sophie by the group? I'd assume so, it's all they've ever known, but it will be interesting. And I do wonder if this Katherine is her real name. We've been hinted at it before, but to choose Katherine twice has to mean something.
We're still up in the air what she'll be calling herself in Season 3. She chose Katherine Klive as her Boston acting alias, as Catherine Clive was one of the first women to perform Shakespeare.
@Woodrow Jarvis Hill: The "fighting in their heads" reminds me of Midnighter from THE AUTHORITY. I see you co-wrote, John (at least according to one site!), so -- deliberate homage, or just clever way to get out of the inevitable damage they'd cause fighting each other in that antiquities room? Either way, it was awesome to see, and unique for TV.
It's actually meant to be primarily a Shaw Brothers homage (hence the filmlook we laid on it), but yeah, you are officially the first person to guess that Eliot's true fictional role model is the Midnighter. But please, please, don't spend a thousand Comments figuring out who the Apollo on the team is ... the sequence is also a reference to the Miyamoto Musashi story called out by @VideoBeagle
@Alexandra: Questions about the imagined fight scenes, because the concept was cool but the execution was too amazing for words: Whose idea was it to do the scratched film effect on those? Did that come straight from Amy's script?
Although I'll take geek credit for the "shadow fight" (and try explaining that to people who've never seen those movies), it was actually our friends in post-production. led by VFX kingoin Mark Franco, who came up with the idea of the scratched filmstock.
@JackAttack: 1.) So if Marcus didn't send Sophie the bomb, why was he so sure at the funeral that it wasn't an accident? And if he was, wouldn't he have been trying to find out who killed her? 2.)who were all the attendees at the fake funeral? people paid by Nate to show up? or were they friends with Sophie as "Katherine" (assuming that's the identity that she used to purchase/rent her place that was blown up)
1.) Marcus is well aware that there are a lot, lot of people who want them dead. Every year you live in Crime World is a bonus year. 2.) Those were "Katherine's" friends from the theater community.
@carol: I would like to know what the old couple will do with the painting - technically it is still stolen so do you have a Word of God as to how they dealt with that?
Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and they'll be able to prove provenance, which the other owner was dodging with his influence and money. Basically, they would have won anyway if they could have gotten a fair hearing, so the evil millionaire just isn't going to press a court case. The whole legal field of recovered art is quite fascinating, actually ...
@Amber: Why did Parker have such a hard time adjusting to Sophie's faked death? Also, will we see more development in Parker and Hardison's relationship?
Parker's world is a very ... literal one. And the funeral made her deal with some issues she's kept buried for a long time. She was half-freaked out, half-teasing. As for she and Hardison -- slooooowly.
@improper Bostonian: I have to ask....what is the star trek connection? Directors and actors?
Just the network of working actors recommending each other. We got Frakes to direct, he recommended Spiner, we knew Wil from the Geekerati ... a lot of actors went through that system. It was actually TNT who first suggested Jeri Ryan (who turned out to be awesome), so that's more a coincidence than anything else.
@Elizabeth: First, if Sophie could lift the vase/bomb over her head after the pudding was added, what was preventing her from slowly putting it on the ground and walking away? Second, if Sophie had died in an explosion, there wouldn't have been an open casket! She would have been pink mist.
1.) Secret bomb physics. Shhhh. 2.) Very good embalmers in Boston.
@Bill Reed: Who put the bomb in Sophie's hands? Wouldn't she have had to come face-to-face with the Wil?
Left outside her door, she picked it up and carried it in, priming it. It woudl then explode when she put it back down.
@Robinyj: My question: Nate knew a little bit about this new team from chasing them. He's chased a lot of people. We know he caught Sophie before in the past, did he ever catch Hardison, Parker or Eliot or did he just chase them?
Caught Hardison, never caught Parker, technically worked parallel to Eliot several times, chased him a few.
@catchester: Also good to see him speaking another language. I get the feeling Eliot's a lot more clever than he ever lets on or is given credit for.
Ep #212.
@USRaider: My question is: Sophie seems to have been in a funk since the departure of the boyfriend as to who she is. Will this have an effect on her abilities as a grifter?
Grifting requires confidence. Losing her confidence, well, she'd best go get her head on straight. For eight episodes or so.
@Courtney: Does the Leverage team still do "outside" jobs?
Occasionally. Eliot and Hardison more than most.
@R.Song: Why wouldn't our team just move a table under Sophie's bomb? You can stack up some magazines to get it the right height, and, viola, walk away without moving the bomb.
They weren't 100% sure of Nate's Jenga reflexes. Also, instant pudding hack. Berg actually came up with that in her first draft of the act, but didn't use it. I literally stormed into her office and yelled at her. You come up with something that cool, you put it in the goddam script.
@TheMindFantastic: Its been said best episode ever, but the one *I* watched doesn't seem to be the one everyone else watched. You see... we are assuming Stark has a crew of FOUR, wherein he actually has a crew of SIX! He knew that Nates crew was in Boston and doing its work FOR GOOD PEOPLE! So he had two Deveraux types come in and 'HIRE' the Leverage Crew so that in the end Stark Wins the Klimpt, AND the Van Gogh (too bad it was the fake)! I mean seriously didn't everyone see that!?!?!? Chaos going all *bomb in the vase* was still his own crazy sort of plan, but Overall Stark had it all planned out and Seriously outsmarted the Leverage crew in a way that 'our' heroes think they win!
... wow. Just ... wow.
@briddle: My only question - is that Apollo's hat that Eliot's wearing at Sophie's funeral? It was awesome in a show full of awesome sauce.
No, that is his "hide my forehead gash" hat.
@kinesys: Also: Nate is in dire need of a swift kick in the head, spiritually. Any chance we'll see D.B. Sweeney again?
Nope. And things are not going to get better ...
@Anonymous: I love Leverage, and wanted to introduce the show to a hearing disabled friend. I was surprised and disappointed there's not captioning/English subtitles on the dvds. Is there a reason for this? Can we get them on the next season?
What? Seriously? I'll check on that.
@Susanne: I would also like to add my adoration over casting Noa Tisby as his counterpart, she was hot and looked competent. Please bring her back sometime (preferably to kick Sterling's ass). Really really loved this episode. Now, my question: What is Hardison's hacker alias?
Oh, Sterling gets his ass kicked, but not by ... although to be fair, he gets his licks in. Anyway, I'll ask Aldis what Hardison's hacker tag was.
@Anna: Can we get an episode where Hardison is locked up and the team finally respects the van? The Mile High Job seemed to have shades of this, but I'd love to see one where he is totally out of commission and they realize just how much harder their jobs would be without him being all "whiffy" in the van.
Oh, the van. That van becomes very important...
@Jp Corkey: However, coming after the Top Hat job, we have a second con where it looks like it's all gone pear shaped and then it turns out it was all according to plan after all. I realise this is a time honoured way of telling con job stories, but I'm beginning to miss the stories where a team plans a con, executes the plan and encounters genuine problems they hadn't planned for and still overcomes them.
Hmm. They never anticipated the speech going short in "Top Hat", or Hardison getting caught. I'm not sure that one falls in the pattern you're seeing. They ran a con on Stark in this one, but in "Iceman" they did not count on Hardison's over-acting selling the Russians, and only Nate figures out what's going on in "Lost Heir." Looking at "Godparents", "Tap Out" and "Hunter", all involve unexpected complications. Pretty much in the same places in the script (*ahem* template*cough*).
I think it's still a mix.
@thingswithwings: here was a lot I loved here. But was it completely necessary to open the episode with Nate and Sophie conning an innocent secretary through the threat of sexual violence? "Your boss is a mass-murderer-slash-rapist, you're his type, and he's coming back tomorrow"? Really? REALLY? Way to advance the culture of rape in America. Way to pander to the assholes who think jokes about rape are funny, or that making women into victims is funny. I hope lots of twelve year old boys learned their lesson, that threatening women with sexual violence will help them get their way! The really amazing part is that the little threat-of-rape-and-murder plot was completely unrelated to the main plot, and they could've distracted the secretary with ANYTHING - which I guess means yall think it's just a hilarious and funny joke when women are made to live in fear. I expected better from this show, which is why it hurts more to see this here than it does to see it everywhere else (which we do, every day). Do better. I love this show. Do better.
Okay, this spun off in the Comments, but 'll just address the first point here and let those interested go back and wade through the Comments if they want more.
I'm pretty careful about triggers, as Lovely Wife works in a crisis field, and I'm sympathetic to the issues you're raising here, but I'm going to do a short answer and a long answer.
Short answer is, we were pretty obviously parodying the culture of fear bullshit, particularly the modern American procedural, sold in American media. I'd think the addition of "wood chipper" to the run would have made that obvious. Wood. Chipper. Hellloooo Criminal Minds.
Second, no. Don't put that shit on us. I don't think it's funny that women are expected to live in fear. Which is why this show is not one of the dozen or so mainstream network shows that traffic in exploiting rape, sexual murder, and an irrational fear of violent super-predators. A field that I christened, a while ago in conversation, "Momcore."
My Mom, a super lovely lady, keeps recommending modern detective thrillers to me to read. Stuff she and her sixty-year-old friends read. So every now and then I'll pick one up -- and they are fucked up. In Jeffrey Deaver's The Bone Collector, turned into a movie with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, a woman is tied to a sewer pipe and BOILED ALIVE.
W.
T.
F?
Cruise through the thick airport best-sellers and you find a parade of cunning rapists, insane serial killers and mocking pedophiles with a tendency toward baroque clue construction. The CSI shows are rape/murdertastic, and the original CSI in particular basically equates anything outside total heteronormativity with perversion deserving of a horrible death, after which sincere CSI squares cluck their tongues and solve your murder that, hey, you kinda brought on yourself anyway.
Now, those dudes are writing crime thrillers, those are the streets they walk. I'm a big fan of those shows (I actually prefer L&O: Criminal Intent, but you know), and accept that they are working withing those bounds. And although it wins Emmys, it was L&O: Rape Exploitation Unit that gave us the famous "sodomized with a violin bow." For God's sake, Harper's Island opened with a dude tied alive to a boat propeller, forced to watch as it turned on and chopped him up alive, and then for a second death they cut Harry Hamlin in half -- in fucking half on-screen-- during the pilot.
ON CBS.
Now, the nature of Harper's Island was also to a great degree parody, but I'm dubious that's how it came across to most of the CBS audience. And they were fine with it, because of a steady dose of Momcore.
Momcore. The casual mainstreaming of gory/sexual violence used to give a frisson of horror to mass culture. We don't do it, we were mocking it, and the whole show was conceived as a rejection of those boogiemen in a quest to go after some actual villains doing big-time damage to people's lives. As Downey said, back when we were developing the show: "I think everybody else on TV has got serial killers covered."
We exploit pain and misery too, parasites of culture that we are, but at least it's in going after villains everybody else seems to be ignoring.
(NOTE: There should be a Mark Millar slam in here too, but I can't work it in organically. Assume you read it.)
@Shelley: OK am I the only person here who watches classic Doctor Who? As soon as the Mona Lisa variant and five paintings showed up, I was rolling on the floor. Maybe this is because I recently watched City of Death ... the sticky note at the end was priceless.
Dr. Who ep written by Douglas Adams, btw. And he was drawing on the same obscure art theft factoid we were, I am sure.
@Mikkee: We're so fortunate to get direct feedback from you. However, since we don't get the opportunity to hear from the cast members, it would be interesting to know if they actually read what their fans have to say. Or is the prospect so time-consuming that they have someone on staff breeze through "fan mail" in order to determine whether each comment should be placed and tallied in the positive, negative or in-between category, for instance?
It depends on actor to actor, and I won't get more explicit than that. I think usually they might breeze through the first few responses, then go back to being Famous Good Looking People.
@lyndsy: Was Parker's idea about the secret Nazis a nod to her sudden interest in conspiracy theories after the Three Days of Hunter job?
No, Hardison's been lending her old Doc Savage books.
@Robert: Loved the episode. I actually thought the Top Hat Job was more of a 'squeeze' episode (where the team has to overcome obstacles that derail their initial plan) rather than a 'breeze' episode (where the reveals at the end show the team had it all going to plan the entire time). I prefer breeze episodes but I understand there needs to be both kinds. I guess that leads to a question. Do you start out knowing what type an episode is, or is it something that comes out as you write?
It tends to show up in the outlining, as that's when the obstacles to the team fall out of the planning process and on to the page.
@Nato: 2. Considering that the whole episode pivoted on Sophie's identity crisis, I thought (and really liked the notion) that Sophie was her OWN evil twin -- that the reformed, improved person she'd become was battling the "Sophie Devereaux" she used to be. I'll also second Tara's recommendation of "The Simple Art of Murder," which includes my all-time favorite Chandler story, "Pearls Are a Nuisance," in which the author turns all his staple elements upside-down, makes hilarious fun of his own style, and still turns out a terrific tale.
Well that's insightful as hell, Nato. We're a pulp show, but we do like when people catch that stuff.
And I cannot second/third/infinity recommend enough Chandler's Simple Art of Murder collection. The original essay, in particular, could be written about modern day TV procedurals without changing a word.
Hell, now you have no excuse:
@Annie: I don't try to think about it too much and just go with it. But I'm still not sure how or when the comms work. Do the others hear both sides when Nate and later Sophie talk to Stark? And related to that if they do how does that work when Stark isn't wearing one (at least not from Nate's team)? And do they hear everything that's said by any member of the team?
They are made, like Dr. Who's sonic screwdriver, from Plotconveniencetonium.
That said, they pick up what you're saying and to a limited degree what someone is saying within three feet of you. You can turn them off, but for a very private conversation most of the crew is in the habit of taking out the earbud. As in the season finale, when ... never mind.
@Lissie: wanted to ask.. will we be finding out about Sophie's persona's? Also, this question is about The Order 23 Job. I noticed how much focus Eliot lost on the job when he saw the little kid and i was wondering, did that happened to him as he was growing up? Is that why he ended up getting recruited or going into the forces or ops? I'd really love to know more of his back story. Him and Parker are the ones that really seem alike in that their pants are a complete mystery.
Left the spelling mistake in because I got a very good laugh from it. Thanks, I needed that.
Sophie killed her personas, but the new one she tries to create will make Season 3 very interesting. Eliot's past is not what you think it is, and as we stated back when the ep aired, the most obvious reason for his distress is probably not what you think it is.
24jg13: Question: How many episodes will Gina Bellman miss due to her pregnancy and when is she actually due?
Gina actually won't miss any episodes, she's just super-light in them. She's due before Season 3.
@IMForeman: Regarding Parker's Laser Escapade: I'm guessing the Lasers were a visual effect, and not a practical one... in the commentary for the First David Job one of you mentioned it's tricky to make them visible. Well, if they were a visual effect, then bravo to your effects team. They had the lasers reflecting in Parker's eyes. Going the extra mile.
Yep, and they surprised us with that. They are top-notch.
@IMForeman: If were asking for British actors, I understand David Tennant's availability is a bit better these days. ;)
I'm not sure who would explode from their crush more, Boylan or me, but I think it's best to leave that temptation alone.
@Anonymous: What was the Mussad chick saying during the reverse briefing on Nate? cause it was kinda awesome that Apollo knew who he was and i would love it if even she was a bit leery of him.
She was actually bitching about the fact Marcus Stark sent her against Eliot Spencer without warning. But yeah, Nate's famous in Crime World.
@Kevin: I'll take a second and remark on how Sophie's character arc is naturally leading her to leave the group for a while -- thus clearing the way for Gina's pregnancy. It isn't feeling forced, and that's a tribute to the writers. Not easy at all. - PCat
Thanks, Kevin. Considering we accelerated it from a 15 ep arc to seven over the course of, oh about a week, it didn't turn out half bad. As a matter of fact, I like this structure even more, because in the second half of the season we get to focus on how destructive and screwed up Nate Ford is.
@Jeff: Hardison's needs to tone it back a bit. My family has started a game of stating where he goes too far. Like when talking with the guards " your the red in my red cross" - too far. Priest in the vault of the bank "You're the twinkle in Twinkle little start" - Way to far. Otherwise I love the character.
As I hope you've seen in "The Iceman Job", that is an intentional character flaw that does and will bite him in the ass repeatedly.
@Anonymous: I must have been watching another show because the Leverage I watched was basically another silly episode put out by the writers that have taken this show so far from its roots it's terrible in comparison. The way I see it there are one of several situations in play here, a couple immediately come to mind...1) The writers are different and have taken the show off course 2) the producers have decided to try to expand the fan base by changing the show instead of giving the audience a chance to find it. Either way it's definitely a "dumbed-up" version of its original self. I hope it finds its way back because it was a fantastic show.
Hopefully, they will soon bring back John Rogers and Dean Devlin.
Just kidding. Nope, you can't like them all. And second season is the "experimental" season. Although I like all the episodes in the first half of the season, we'll see if the second half is a bit more your style.
@hearetspeed: Did the team actually Send Chaos the real painting? I saw that when they opened the box there was a sticky note that said "This is the real one!" But I guess I can't see them letting go a priceless work of art. Or have they really all evolved so much that they don't even think twice about it?
Vengeance > profit.
@Sean: As for the episode, how much does it cost(in general) to make an episode of LEVERAGE? I mean without the marketing push, just actors,writers, sets, and crew.
We are around the bog-standard cable $2 million per. Almost standard, that is.
@sadbhyl: Chaos tells Stark that everyone was always more afraid of Sophie than of him. Afraid? I can see respecting her more than him, but afraid? Was this a deliberate word choice, and if so, why?
How many people in Crime World do you think crossed Sophie Devereaux and got away with it? She holds a grudge.
@Jason: 1.) You once wrote that "rain is cheap night." Taking some guests from out of town on the WB studio tour, I mentioned this remark to them...and then we couldn't figure it out. I suppose night shoots must be more expensive because, I dunno, it's time and a half for the crew or something? But can rain really pass for night?
2.)And while I'm on the subject of questions about TV production in general and not about your show in particular, how many morgues are there? Is there just one morgue on someone's lot and everyone rents it to do their shoots there? Cuz come to think of it, they all look exactly the same, with the same rows of square stainless steel doors, always shot from the same angle, with that same door to the left.
1.) I meant "rain is good atmosphere." If you can't get moody night, get moody rain. And night is cripplingly expensive, not to mention the nastiness it does to your call times. 2.) Most TV morgues are set builds, and so are constrained to set architecture and camera conventions. There's probably natural similarities created by those two parameters.
Okay, two or three days down, then we'll pick up with #208 "The Iceman Job" one of my personal favorites in the run for this year. As always, thanks for your time and attention, and we're working very hard to cook up some bonus material to tide the fans over until Leverage 2.5 begins in January.
Oh, and heads up: Trigger warning. Skip the longish ranty bit down in the questions, you should be fine.
216 Comments and questions? Jesus Murphy, I've learned my lesson. Address each episode as quickly as possible before they spiral out on us.
Right, literally every human who comes in to pitch Leverage has pitched some variation of the "Other Crew" story. It was easily the oldest card on the Wall o' Ideas, from first season. You put together the Justice League, and some hard-wired bit of the amygdala demands the presence of the Injustice League. It's Campbellian.
As a result, this was one of the first episodes broken this year. Even before the rest of the writers came back, I was breaking "Beantown", Chris was working on "Order 23", and Berg jammed on "Two Live". She had an outline for the episode, much as it was finally scripted (with some exceptions in the first/second act clue paths) well before most of the other episodes were even pitched.
The problem: it was plainly a mid-season finale. That sort of scale, the stunt-casting ... of course.
But when you've got such a wee writing staff and no prep time thanks to the summer pickup, you need to write the episodes roughly in order of production. Not to mention that we learned of Gina's pregnancy the first week of shooting -- while we'd never worried too much about continuity in S1, in S2 we had to arc her character so we had a good reason for her to depart before she became unshootable.
To her immense credit, "unshootable" was our call, not Gina's. Gina wasn't hesitant to work as long as possible under any conditions. I mean, at one point she she was squeezing 7 months of pre-mommy down ... well that would be telling. But we're not a hospital show, we can't throw her in a surgical gown and have her stand behind gurneys. At some point, some shit is going to blow up, running will be involved, and a body double only goes so far.
Episode 7 made the most sense for her departure, and "Two Live Crew" gave us the best matching plot for that moment. So "Two Live Crew" was shelved -- a heartbreaker when you're already four weeks behind on the normal "John's Backup Plans A Through M Writing Schedule". Berg switched off to a corporate retreat story. That sonuvabitch proved unbreakable (great setting, interesting dynamics, but just didn't work. That's a tease, that sort of story) and so she switched over to "The Fairy Godparents Job".
For those of you who want to join the Sausage-Making Factory, that's a lesson worth learning. Every show has a couple unbreakable episodes cooking around. For all the thousands of pages shot during the life of a show, there's half that again in aborted outlines, broken drafts, and scripts that just couldn't be shot for the budget littering the three-ring binders of the script coordinator. But, as our great Sitcom Forefathers taught us, "We use all the parts of the Buffalo." Pieces of those broken scripts have wound up in the produced episodes of S2 -- hell, sometimes there's nothing but the "CUT TO"s left unplundered.
And so, just a few weeks before it was to be shot, we turned to back to "Two Live Crew." As Berg mentioned in her interview at IF Magazine, she was pretty whipped after coming home from Portland (on-site for #204) and so she was more than amenable for me to jump in and write with her. To tell the truth, I (selfishly) kind of insist on writing the big arc-y scenes for the characters, and with this as Sophie's departure, I was going to be up to my unwanted elbows in it anyway.
The ep as shot is very much as outlined, with two exceptions.
1.) the original 1st/2nd act were much more investigatory, with the team first unwittingly recovering a forgery for the clients (instead of finding Dogs Playing Poker) and then following the clue path through the forger to the Auction House.
2.) Wil Wheaton was a girl.
The problem with 1.) was that we knew it was the "Evil Leverage-verse" episode, all the fun STARTED when the audience knew it was the "Evil Leverage-verse" episode, and yet we didn't really meet them until Act 3. Berg and I got as far as rebreaking to an attempt on Sophie's life, and Downey was the one who actually came up with the funeral idea. Again, Spec-Monkeys, this is why you have a writing staff. Downey's writing attack is "place." Once he's got the setting in his head, he can parse every inch of story and character funny out of it. Much like I crave momentum, Berg craves character emo, Boylan craves big speeches and Rieder craves adorable tiger cubs, it's his first instinct.
Knowing we'd go to the "draw 'em out" funeral in Act Two, that gave us the inspiration for the Big Attempt on Sophie in Act One, and that, backing up, led to the parallel break-ins. So even though our team doesn't meet the "Evil Team of Evil Leverage "until Act 3, the audience has, and is now looking forward to the conflict. Forward momentum with intent.
Full credit to the change in 2.) belongs to Berg. We originally had each member of the Leverage team opposed by a member of the opposite sex. Parker/Apollo (we knew we'd be using Apollo from Day One), Eliot/Sister Kickass, Hardison/HaxorChix, Sophie/Stark. In theory, the Leverage team had the advantage because of Nate. We evolved past that in the outline but those pairing stayed.
While we were casting, it was Berg who suggested "you know, we've been saying over and over again we want a good role for Wil ..." We'd planned on making him a suited villain, but the geek cred he brought to a hacker role was just too good to pass up. We switched the character over, and Wil came on board.
Originally Noa Tishby's character was Asian, but when we opened up the casting choices we saw her tape, found out she'd served in the Israeli Army, and our first intinct was: "That looks like a women who can take a punch. And land one."
(Fun Fact: Noa was the one who saw the potential of the Israeli TV show which became HBO's In Treatment, acquired the rights and brought it to American producers.)
After that, the shoot was breeze. Or, at least, as breezy as it ever is when you shoot a feature film in seven days. I got drunk with Wil a few too many times ("So you're saying your first action post-Singularity ..." "More Land of the Lost episodes." "Not a cure for cancer --" "LAND. OF. THE. LOST!"), Apollo turned out to be a fine and expressive actor, and Sophie's goodbye scene made the PA's cry. (Gina chose the red coat she wore in that final scene btw.)
Let's open up the question box and see what's in there.
@Gwendolen: our Team was able to break into the Anti-Team's hideout to steal the forgeries, why didn't they just steal the first painting (and use the theft at the gallery merely as a distraction)?
"Let's make it five," Stark says, revealing the copies. We establish that only the copies of the second painting are in the warehouse, the first painting is at some undesignated location.
@DISAFAN: Will we be seeing Chaos again? In less than 10-20 I mean. Seems like a fun guy to bring back.
Considering fans are having Wil sign autographs as Chaos, yes, I think he'll be back. And just to answer the maybe 50 questions about this -- yes, you will see these characters again. Season 3 has a ... slightly different vibe.
@Michelle: So Hardison's little 'Yall's nasty" comment .. was that improv or scripted.
Improved, I believe. Although I think he had something else scripted.
@Bardic Lady: 1.)Are we meant to infer that Eliot and Noa Tisby's character have a fling immediately following the episode? 2.)I know I recognize Marlowe and Archer as names from something, but I can't place it right now, can you assist?3.) How on earth is Parker going to deal with Sophie coming back and not going by Sophie anymore? Playing dead was bad enough...
1.) Oh hell yeah. And during parts of it. 2.) Although most people got the Philip Marlowe reference, Sophie's name comes from PI Lew Archer (although Spade's murdered partner in The Maltese Falcon was also named Archer) 3.) It should be an interesting adjustment. For us, too.
@bluehex: I apologize if the question has been asked before, but is Eliot's name a nod to "Hellraiser"
Nope. It's just the most non-punchmeister name Downey and I could come up with.
@ita: The first time they hit the auction house, what was Eliot's job? Apart from fate getting him where he needed to be.
Hey ita!! Eliot's often on the ground during cons as both physical backup and to check on the the real-world conditions of things Hardison has found on his many blueprints.
@Becky: I did like how the wound on Christian's temple was worked into the fight. That was perfect. Was the fight scene filmed before or after he pulled his own stitches out?
After. Please, don't encourage him.
@elcucuyfeo: Now on to the question, I have noticed in flashbacks we always see "lil Parker" Will we see any Lil other team members?
We actually see L'il Nate Ford coming up in the back half of the season.
@Wil Wheaton: When Chaos gets a spin-off, how many robots will live with him in his apartment?
Five, but they're a rotating set of personalities. Different crime crew with Chaos every week!
@Anonymous: Given the lack of honor amongst thieves from Chaos, after getting caught wouldn't he rat everyone out for a reduced sentence?
Try catching them. Big head start, and Hardison covers their trail very, very thoroughly.
@ellinor: When we see Sophie's tombstone the first time, it says Katherine, and the second time, it says Sophie. Are we meant to understand that she had it changed?
Yes. She is burying the identity associated with the name "Sophie Devereaux."
@Gaby: But as Sophie is on the tombstone, will she still be called Sophie by the group? I'd assume so, it's all they've ever known, but it will be interesting. And I do wonder if this Katherine is her real name. We've been hinted at it before, but to choose Katherine twice has to mean something.
We're still up in the air what she'll be calling herself in Season 3. She chose Katherine Klive as her Boston acting alias, as Catherine Clive was one of the first women to perform Shakespeare.
@Woodrow Jarvis Hill: The "fighting in their heads" reminds me of Midnighter from THE AUTHORITY. I see you co-wrote, John (at least according to one site!), so -- deliberate homage, or just clever way to get out of the inevitable damage they'd cause fighting each other in that antiquities room? Either way, it was awesome to see, and unique for TV.
It's actually meant to be primarily a Shaw Brothers homage (hence the filmlook we laid on it), but yeah, you are officially the first person to guess that Eliot's true fictional role model is the Midnighter. But please, please, don't spend a thousand Comments figuring out who the Apollo on the team is ... the sequence is also a reference to the Miyamoto Musashi story called out by @VideoBeagle
@Alexandra: Questions about the imagined fight scenes, because the concept was cool but the execution was too amazing for words: Whose idea was it to do the scratched film effect on those? Did that come straight from Amy's script?
Although I'll take geek credit for the "shadow fight" (and try explaining that to people who've never seen those movies), it was actually our friends in post-production. led by VFX kingoin Mark Franco, who came up with the idea of the scratched filmstock.
@JackAttack: 1.) So if Marcus didn't send Sophie the bomb, why was he so sure at the funeral that it wasn't an accident? And if he was, wouldn't he have been trying to find out who killed her? 2.)who were all the attendees at the fake funeral? people paid by Nate to show up? or were they friends with Sophie as "Katherine" (assuming that's the identity that she used to purchase/rent her place that was blown up)
1.) Marcus is well aware that there are a lot, lot of people who want them dead. Every year you live in Crime World is a bonus year. 2.) Those were "Katherine's" friends from the theater community.
@carol: I would like to know what the old couple will do with the painting - technically it is still stolen so do you have a Word of God as to how they dealt with that?
Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and they'll be able to prove provenance, which the other owner was dodging with his influence and money. Basically, they would have won anyway if they could have gotten a fair hearing, so the evil millionaire just isn't going to press a court case. The whole legal field of recovered art is quite fascinating, actually ...
@Amber: Why did Parker have such a hard time adjusting to Sophie's faked death? Also, will we see more development in Parker and Hardison's relationship?
Parker's world is a very ... literal one. And the funeral made her deal with some issues she's kept buried for a long time. She was half-freaked out, half-teasing. As for she and Hardison -- slooooowly.
@improper Bostonian: I have to ask....what is the star trek connection? Directors and actors?
Just the network of working actors recommending each other. We got Frakes to direct, he recommended Spiner, we knew Wil from the Geekerati ... a lot of actors went through that system. It was actually TNT who first suggested Jeri Ryan (who turned out to be awesome), so that's more a coincidence than anything else.
@Elizabeth: First, if Sophie could lift the vase/bomb over her head after the pudding was added, what was preventing her from slowly putting it on the ground and walking away? Second, if Sophie had died in an explosion, there wouldn't have been an open casket! She would have been pink mist.
1.) Secret bomb physics. Shhhh. 2.) Very good embalmers in Boston.
@Bill Reed: Who put the bomb in Sophie's hands? Wouldn't she have had to come face-to-face with the Wil?
Left outside her door, she picked it up and carried it in, priming it. It woudl then explode when she put it back down.
@Robinyj: My question: Nate knew a little bit about this new team from chasing them. He's chased a lot of people. We know he caught Sophie before in the past, did he ever catch Hardison, Parker or Eliot or did he just chase them?
Caught Hardison, never caught Parker, technically worked parallel to Eliot several times, chased him a few.
@catchester: Also good to see him speaking another language. I get the feeling Eliot's a lot more clever than he ever lets on or is given credit for.
Ep #212.
@USRaider: My question is: Sophie seems to have been in a funk since the departure of the boyfriend as to who she is. Will this have an effect on her abilities as a grifter?
Grifting requires confidence. Losing her confidence, well, she'd best go get her head on straight. For eight episodes or so.
@Courtney: Does the Leverage team still do "outside" jobs?
Occasionally. Eliot and Hardison more than most.
@R.Song: Why wouldn't our team just move a table under Sophie's bomb? You can stack up some magazines to get it the right height, and, viola, walk away without moving the bomb.
They weren't 100% sure of Nate's Jenga reflexes. Also, instant pudding hack. Berg actually came up with that in her first draft of the act, but didn't use it. I literally stormed into her office and yelled at her. You come up with something that cool, you put it in the goddam script.
@TheMindFantastic: Its been said best episode ever, but the one *I* watched doesn't seem to be the one everyone else watched. You see... we are assuming Stark has a crew of FOUR, wherein he actually has a crew of SIX! He knew that Nates crew was in Boston and doing its work FOR GOOD PEOPLE! So he had two Deveraux types come in and 'HIRE' the Leverage Crew so that in the end Stark Wins the Klimpt, AND the Van Gogh (too bad it was the fake)! I mean seriously didn't everyone see that!?!?!? Chaos going all *bomb in the vase* was still his own crazy sort of plan, but Overall Stark had it all planned out and Seriously outsmarted the Leverage crew in a way that 'our' heroes think they win!
... wow. Just ... wow.
@briddle: My only question - is that Apollo's hat that Eliot's wearing at Sophie's funeral? It was awesome in a show full of awesome sauce.
No, that is his "hide my forehead gash" hat.
@kinesys: Also: Nate is in dire need of a swift kick in the head, spiritually. Any chance we'll see D.B. Sweeney again?
Nope. And things are not going to get better ...
@Anonymous: I love Leverage, and wanted to introduce the show to a hearing disabled friend. I was surprised and disappointed there's not captioning/English subtitles on the dvds. Is there a reason for this? Can we get them on the next season?
What? Seriously? I'll check on that.
@Susanne: I would also like to add my adoration over casting Noa Tisby as his counterpart, she was hot and looked competent. Please bring her back sometime (preferably to kick Sterling's ass). Really really loved this episode. Now, my question: What is Hardison's hacker alias?
Oh, Sterling gets his ass kicked, but not by ... although to be fair, he gets his licks in. Anyway, I'll ask Aldis what Hardison's hacker tag was.
@Anna: Can we get an episode where Hardison is locked up and the team finally respects the van? The Mile High Job seemed to have shades of this, but I'd love to see one where he is totally out of commission and they realize just how much harder their jobs would be without him being all "whiffy" in the van.
Oh, the van. That van becomes very important...
@Jp Corkey: However, coming after the Top Hat job, we have a second con where it looks like it's all gone pear shaped and then it turns out it was all according to plan after all. I realise this is a time honoured way of telling con job stories, but I'm beginning to miss the stories where a team plans a con, executes the plan and encounters genuine problems they hadn't planned for and still overcomes them.
Hmm. They never anticipated the speech going short in "Top Hat", or Hardison getting caught. I'm not sure that one falls in the pattern you're seeing. They ran a con on Stark in this one, but in "Iceman" they did not count on Hardison's over-acting selling the Russians, and only Nate figures out what's going on in "Lost Heir." Looking at "Godparents", "Tap Out" and "Hunter", all involve unexpected complications. Pretty much in the same places in the script (*ahem* template*cough*).
I think it's still a mix.
@thingswithwings: here was a lot I loved here. But was it completely necessary to open the episode with Nate and Sophie conning an innocent secretary through the threat of sexual violence? "Your boss is a mass-murderer-slash-rapist, you're his type, and he's coming back tomorrow"? Really? REALLY? Way to advance the culture of rape in America. Way to pander to the assholes who think jokes about rape are funny, or that making women into victims is funny. I hope lots of twelve year old boys learned their lesson, that threatening women with sexual violence will help them get their way! The really amazing part is that the little threat-of-rape-and-murder plot was completely unrelated to the main plot, and they could've distracted the secretary with ANYTHING - which I guess means yall think it's just a hilarious and funny joke when women are made to live in fear. I expected better from this show, which is why it hurts more to see this here than it does to see it everywhere else (which we do, every day). Do better. I love this show. Do better.
Okay, this spun off in the Comments, but 'll just address the first point here and let those interested go back and wade through the Comments if they want more.
I'm pretty careful about triggers, as Lovely Wife works in a crisis field, and I'm sympathetic to the issues you're raising here, but I'm going to do a short answer and a long answer.
Short answer is, we were pretty obviously parodying the culture of fear bullshit, particularly the modern American procedural, sold in American media. I'd think the addition of "wood chipper" to the run would have made that obvious. Wood. Chipper. Hellloooo Criminal Minds.
Second, no. Don't put that shit on us. I don't think it's funny that women are expected to live in fear. Which is why this show is not one of the dozen or so mainstream network shows that traffic in exploiting rape, sexual murder, and an irrational fear of violent super-predators. A field that I christened, a while ago in conversation, "Momcore."
My Mom, a super lovely lady, keeps recommending modern detective thrillers to me to read. Stuff she and her sixty-year-old friends read. So every now and then I'll pick one up -- and they are fucked up. In Jeffrey Deaver's The Bone Collector, turned into a movie with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, a woman is tied to a sewer pipe and BOILED ALIVE.
W.
T.
F?
Cruise through the thick airport best-sellers and you find a parade of cunning rapists, insane serial killers and mocking pedophiles with a tendency toward baroque clue construction. The CSI shows are rape/murdertastic, and the original CSI in particular basically equates anything outside total heteronormativity with perversion deserving of a horrible death, after which sincere CSI squares cluck their tongues and solve your murder that, hey, you kinda brought on yourself anyway.
Now, those dudes are writing crime thrillers, those are the streets they walk. I'm a big fan of those shows (I actually prefer L&O: Criminal Intent, but you know), and accept that they are working withing those bounds. And although it wins Emmys, it was L&O: Rape Exploitation Unit that gave us the famous "sodomized with a violin bow." For God's sake, Harper's Island opened with a dude tied alive to a boat propeller, forced to watch as it turned on and chopped him up alive, and then for a second death they cut Harry Hamlin in half -- in fucking half on-screen-- during the pilot.
ON CBS.
Now, the nature of Harper's Island was also to a great degree parody, but I'm dubious that's how it came across to most of the CBS audience. And they were fine with it, because of a steady dose of Momcore.
Momcore. The casual mainstreaming of gory/sexual violence used to give a frisson of horror to mass culture. We don't do it, we were mocking it, and the whole show was conceived as a rejection of those boogiemen in a quest to go after some actual villains doing big-time damage to people's lives. As Downey said, back when we were developing the show: "I think everybody else on TV has got serial killers covered."
We exploit pain and misery too, parasites of culture that we are, but at least it's in going after villains everybody else seems to be ignoring.
(NOTE: There should be a Mark Millar slam in here too, but I can't work it in organically. Assume you read it.)
@Shelley: OK am I the only person here who watches classic Doctor Who? As soon as the Mona Lisa variant and five paintings showed up, I was rolling on the floor. Maybe this is because I recently watched City of Death ... the sticky note at the end was priceless.
Dr. Who ep written by Douglas Adams, btw. And he was drawing on the same obscure art theft factoid we were, I am sure.
@Mikkee: We're so fortunate to get direct feedback from you. However, since we don't get the opportunity to hear from the cast members, it would be interesting to know if they actually read what their fans have to say. Or is the prospect so time-consuming that they have someone on staff breeze through "fan mail" in order to determine whether each comment should be placed and tallied in the positive, negative or in-between category, for instance?
It depends on actor to actor, and I won't get more explicit than that. I think usually they might breeze through the first few responses, then go back to being Famous Good Looking People.
@lyndsy: Was Parker's idea about the secret Nazis a nod to her sudden interest in conspiracy theories after the Three Days of Hunter job?
No, Hardison's been lending her old Doc Savage books.
@Robert: Loved the episode. I actually thought the Top Hat Job was more of a 'squeeze' episode (where the team has to overcome obstacles that derail their initial plan) rather than a 'breeze' episode (where the reveals at the end show the team had it all going to plan the entire time). I prefer breeze episodes but I understand there needs to be both kinds. I guess that leads to a question. Do you start out knowing what type an episode is, or is it something that comes out as you write?
It tends to show up in the outlining, as that's when the obstacles to the team fall out of the planning process and on to the page.
@Nato: 2. Considering that the whole episode pivoted on Sophie's identity crisis, I thought (and really liked the notion) that Sophie was her OWN evil twin -- that the reformed, improved person she'd become was battling the "Sophie Devereaux" she used to be. I'll also second Tara's recommendation of "The Simple Art of Murder," which includes my all-time favorite Chandler story, "Pearls Are a Nuisance," in which the author turns all his staple elements upside-down, makes hilarious fun of his own style, and still turns out a terrific tale.
Well that's insightful as hell, Nato. We're a pulp show, but we do like when people catch that stuff.
And I cannot second/third/infinity recommend enough Chandler's Simple Art of Murder collection. The original essay, in particular, could be written about modern day TV procedurals without changing a word.
Hell, now you have no excuse:
@Annie: I don't try to think about it too much and just go with it. But I'm still not sure how or when the comms work. Do the others hear both sides when Nate and later Sophie talk to Stark? And related to that if they do how does that work when Stark isn't wearing one (at least not from Nate's team)? And do they hear everything that's said by any member of the team?
They are made, like Dr. Who's sonic screwdriver, from Plotconveniencetonium.
That said, they pick up what you're saying and to a limited degree what someone is saying within three feet of you. You can turn them off, but for a very private conversation most of the crew is in the habit of taking out the earbud. As in the season finale, when ... never mind.
@Lissie: wanted to ask.. will we be finding out about Sophie's persona's? Also, this question is about The Order 23 Job. I noticed how much focus Eliot lost on the job when he saw the little kid and i was wondering, did that happened to him as he was growing up? Is that why he ended up getting recruited or going into the forces or ops? I'd really love to know more of his back story. Him and Parker are the ones that really seem alike in that their pants are a complete mystery.
Left the spelling mistake in because I got a very good laugh from it. Thanks, I needed that.
Sophie killed her personas, but the new one she tries to create will make Season 3 very interesting. Eliot's past is not what you think it is, and as we stated back when the ep aired, the most obvious reason for his distress is probably not what you think it is.
24jg13: Question: How many episodes will Gina Bellman miss due to her pregnancy and when is she actually due?
Gina actually won't miss any episodes, she's just super-light in them. She's due before Season 3.
@IMForeman: Regarding Parker's Laser Escapade: I'm guessing the Lasers were a visual effect, and not a practical one... in the commentary for the First David Job one of you mentioned it's tricky to make them visible. Well, if they were a visual effect, then bravo to your effects team. They had the lasers reflecting in Parker's eyes. Going the extra mile.
Yep, and they surprised us with that. They are top-notch.
@IMForeman: If were asking for British actors, I understand David Tennant's availability is a bit better these days. ;)
I'm not sure who would explode from their crush more, Boylan or me, but I think it's best to leave that temptation alone.
@Anonymous: What was the Mussad chick saying during the reverse briefing on Nate? cause it was kinda awesome that Apollo knew who he was and i would love it if even she was a bit leery of him.
She was actually bitching about the fact Marcus Stark sent her against Eliot Spencer without warning. But yeah, Nate's famous in Crime World.
@Kevin: I'll take a second and remark on how Sophie's character arc is naturally leading her to leave the group for a while -- thus clearing the way for Gina's pregnancy. It isn't feeling forced, and that's a tribute to the writers. Not easy at all. - PCat
Thanks, Kevin. Considering we accelerated it from a 15 ep arc to seven over the course of, oh about a week, it didn't turn out half bad. As a matter of fact, I like this structure even more, because in the second half of the season we get to focus on how destructive and screwed up Nate Ford is.
@Jeff: Hardison's needs to tone it back a bit. My family has started a game of stating where he goes too far. Like when talking with the guards " your the red in my red cross" - too far. Priest in the vault of the bank "You're the twinkle in Twinkle little start" - Way to far. Otherwise I love the character.
As I hope you've seen in "The Iceman Job", that is an intentional character flaw that does and will bite him in the ass repeatedly.
@Anonymous: I must have been watching another show because the Leverage I watched was basically another silly episode put out by the writers that have taken this show so far from its roots it's terrible in comparison. The way I see it there are one of several situations in play here, a couple immediately come to mind...1) The writers are different and have taken the show off course 2) the producers have decided to try to expand the fan base by changing the show instead of giving the audience a chance to find it. Either way it's definitely a "dumbed-up" version of its original self. I hope it finds its way back because it was a fantastic show.
Hopefully, they will soon bring back John Rogers and Dean Devlin.
Just kidding. Nope, you can't like them all. And second season is the "experimental" season. Although I like all the episodes in the first half of the season, we'll see if the second half is a bit more your style.
@hearetspeed: Did the team actually Send Chaos the real painting? I saw that when they opened the box there was a sticky note that said "This is the real one!" But I guess I can't see them letting go a priceless work of art. Or have they really all evolved so much that they don't even think twice about it?
Vengeance > profit.
@Sean: As for the episode, how much does it cost(in general) to make an episode of LEVERAGE? I mean without the marketing push, just actors,writers, sets, and crew.
We are around the bog-standard cable $2 million per. Almost standard, that is.
@sadbhyl: Chaos tells Stark that everyone was always more afraid of Sophie than of him. Afraid? I can see respecting her more than him, but afraid? Was this a deliberate word choice, and if so, why?
How many people in Crime World do you think crossed Sophie Devereaux and got away with it? She holds a grudge.
@Jason: 1.) You once wrote that "rain is cheap night." Taking some guests from out of town on the WB studio tour, I mentioned this remark to them...and then we couldn't figure it out. I suppose night shoots must be more expensive because, I dunno, it's time and a half for the crew or something? But can rain really pass for night?
2.)And while I'm on the subject of questions about TV production in general and not about your show in particular, how many morgues are there? Is there just one morgue on someone's lot and everyone rents it to do their shoots there? Cuz come to think of it, they all look exactly the same, with the same rows of square stainless steel doors, always shot from the same angle, with that same door to the left.
1.) I meant "rain is good atmosphere." If you can't get moody night, get moody rain. And night is cripplingly expensive, not to mention the nastiness it does to your call times. 2.) Most TV morgues are set builds, and so are constrained to set architecture and camera conventions. There's probably natural similarities created by those two parameters.
Okay, two or three days down, then we'll pick up with #208 "The Iceman Job" one of my personal favorites in the run for this year. As always, thanks for your time and attention, and we're working very hard to cook up some bonus material to tide the fans over until Leverage 2.5 begins in January.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Ladies and Gentlemen ...
That is ...
... a work finish ...
... on Season 2 ...
... of Leverage.
GOOD NIGHT, PORTLAND!!
(Bonus footage courtesy Hutton)
... a work finish ...
... on Season 2 ...
... of Leverage.
GOOD NIGHT, PORTLAND!!
(Bonus footage courtesy Hutton)
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Question Post for LEVERAGE #209 "The Lost Heir Job"
Posted from set. For the summer season Finale, post your questions, compliments and kvetches.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Inbox Zero, My Ass
Four days without answering e-mails (no internet access out at the tanker) and there's a THOUSAND of the bloody things waiting for me? Gahh. Merlin Mann, save me now ...
In the Comments, open thread on your favorite productivity/lifehacker tricks and software programs. I'll take this opportunity to recommend Dropbox yet again.
In the Comments, open thread on your favorite productivity/lifehacker tricks and software programs. I'll take this opportunity to recommend Dropbox yet again.
Question Post for LEVERAGE #208 "The Ice Man Job"
Hardison's on the grift, Parker's upside-down, Eliot is annoyed, and Nate gets back into the insurance biz. Questions, etc. in the Comments.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
LEVERAGE #206 "The Top Hat Job" Post-game
Out the door at 5:30 am and back in at 2am -- and yet I still answer your accursed questions! FIE!
When confronted with this problem, we did what you always should do -- use the term most of the audience will understand, and answer any questions on the blog.
(In retrospect, that might have been a funny Hardison/Eliot scene ...)
@Tom Galloway (and @Codger, this is close to yours): You've got Eliot and Hardison in the server room. Erik with an evil k shows up alone...and their response is to hide, run, and have to access the servers from another floor/room. Um, given they only need a short time and Erik's alone, why can't Eliot just take out and restrain Erik until Hardison gets the files? This stands out particularly since the team then, well, take out and restrain the CEO for an extended period.
Plan A is always try to get in and out without the bad guy knowing. So, you know, headlocking him is probably not Plan A. This episode is an example of their plan falling apart step by step (not something we do all that often, but it's a good change-up) so the end-game is in no way what they went through those front doors intending to do. That's why Eliot says "I can't believe we pulled this one off ..." at the end.
@Tom Galloway (geesh, Tom, get on the fun train :P ): At the end, the CEO certainly seems willing to listen and believe Jameson very quickly and completely; I don't think they had any time to show him any evidence, which was deleted anyway. And he slams down Erik immediately. So, what was stopping the easy approach of getting Jameson in contact with the CEO to start with?
Lengthy three-way phone call/blackmail sequence truncated for spiffy exit. Mostly because I had way, way too much fun in the writer's room delivering the outraged line "They put me in a BOX!" over and over again.
@Jocelyn: Okay, we learned in The Beantown Bailout Job that Hardison purchased Nate's building so does that mean everyone lives in the building? Or does the team have secondary places of residence in town cause I'd like to see these vegetables Eliot speaks of.
Answered here.
@Codger (you again?): Where was Parker intending to go when she jumped off the elevator, since everything they wanted to access was above them?
They thought they had an hour to go get the files. When it turns out they didn't, she had to get back downstairs post-haste. Jumping for that, not the break-in.
@Rosalyn: This is a really cosmetic question, but why was Hardison wearing that letterman jacket at the magic show?
In Hardison and Parker's minds, that's what normal human couples look like. I know, I know. Scary.
@Casey: Love the show but you need to slow down and do more research. Besides the patent issue, and the already mentioned "can't rappel from a non-fixed point" issue, I had another problem with the rappeling scene: Where did the inertia go? Why was Parker able to land so lightly at the bottom, with less of a physical jolt than Hardison had when he fell maybe 1/20th the distance? The show wants to be smart, or at least be considered smart, and wants to appeal to a smart audience, you can't let elementary factual errors build up like that.
Luckily, we're really aiming for entertaining rather than smart.
@Save-vs-DM: Question: was that poking bit between Parker and Eliot improvised at all? It had the feeling of being improvised.
I believe it was improv .. improv-ved?
@Gordon: 1. Is the color orange turning into the Michael's yogurt in-joke? First we get Sophie's orange jewelry and handbag, then Parker's orange tee-shirt, and then I think I caught a peek at orange shoes on Sophie this week. Orange is for more than soda this season, it appears. 2. Parker went up to help hack the computer with Parker and Hardison, but then rappelled back down before Nate called her back down. Did we have an editing error, or did I have a Scooby-Doo moment? 3.) Was Nate's introduction as the magician a goof on the ringmaster in Torchwood's episode "Out of the Rain" or am I reading too much into these things? 4.) WHAT Dr. Strangelove references? I'm still working on Blackadder from last week, and no one will put me out of my misery.
1.) Dammit, you found the color coded messages. You and your friends should buy every episode online and then every DVD to unravel the ARG we've hidden in the show.
2.) I'm going to say, without a review, the sequence went a.) Erik announces he's not talking b.) Parker prepares to rappel c.) Nate summons her d.) rappelling. Could be wrong.
3.) Reading too much into it, but nice reference. BTW, has it occurred to anyone that Captain Jack just doesn't much like children?
4.) It's Dr. Strange, and we mean Clea.
@Zed283: Does Hardison go to DefCon every year or just 2008? The cell phone wifi package and the rfid badge trick were both straight out of the presentations from that year.
Oh, are those actual hacker tricks? (We don't usually research anything.) Not only does Hardison go, he has won "Spot the Fed" three years running.
@Erik: Being an Erik with a K it was nice to see the more neglected spelling get it's day in the sun, but I resent the fact that you've portrayed us as all being completely evil! At my worst, I'd say I'm no more than 50% evil and average somewhere around 30-35% most days. This is how stereotypes start :(
Unfortunately, we must assume you are lying about that 50%, as you spell your name with a k. How evil of you.
@USRaider: My questions are: The subject of "The Top Hat Job" is highly conceivable as a real life happening. Has there been a situation yet that the subject for an episode was either not used by you and the writers or turned down by The Powers That Be because it is too real? Second, Hardison (Aldis) can get quite technical on his explanations of how he is using his devices. Is this like "MacGyver" where a key element of his electronic knowledge is left out so it can't be duplicated by...oh, I don't know...a viewer?
1.) Nope., they leave us alone. We are self-regulating. Seriously, it's a bit odd how far they let us run.
2.) Damn, we should really do that. Whoops. Although I think in the internet age, it's hard to argue that would be even remotely effective.
@Anonymous: Anyway, questions. 1.) Am I correct in my assumption that, aside from the Leverage team, Eliot mostly works as a mercenary for various governments? 2.) Also, are we going to learn about any of the team members' political views in the future? Parker probably doesn't care, but I think the rest of the team could have some interesting takes on things. I wouldn't be surprised if Eliot belonged to CPUSA, actually. And I get a Ron Paul-supporter vibe from Hardison.
1.) Yes. I'm not sure the line's still in #212, but at one point he mentions he's "taken a lot of jobs standing in Embassy basements."
2.) No. You don't know how Doc Savage votes, I see no reason to know how Nate Ford votes.
@SueN: Now, my question: For season 3 (and we all know there's gonna be a season 3, right? RIGHT?!), can the team steal a rodeo? Pleeeeeze? Nate back in his cowboy persona, Sophie as the rodeo queen, Parker having to interact with livestock, Hardison completely out of his element, and Eliot riding a bull (or maybe fighting it). In chaps.
... sorry for the delay. But my conversation with Kane where I called him at home and asked if he'd mind wearing chaps for me did not go particularly well. Aside from that, we've kicked around a rodeo show, so we'll see.
@Anonymous: I was reading through your answers to previous questions, and saw that Eliot apparently killed the abusive dad in "The Order 23 Job." ... Anyway, my point was; Has Eliot killed anyone on-screen during the show? And how many off-screen/implied kills (only while he's working with Leverage, it's pretty clear he's racked up a lot on his own) has he performed?
I was just joking about Eliot killing the dad. Eliot did not kill the abusive dad. Repeat -- Eliot did not break into the man's house, put him in a sleeper hold, and then jam a pretzel down his throat and into his trachea to fake a choking death. Did not.
Eliot has not killed anyone on-screen. His off-screen body count is not excessive.
@SueN: So far we've seen every member of the team rappel except Eliot. So, have we finally found something Christian won't do?
You realize now he's going to bug us to do this until we let him. Great.
@RichardJensen: As an old-school (Pre-Leverage.) fan of the blog, I've really missed political stuff. I know you've been cutting back on it because of the show but will you be getting back to it end of season?
You know what? Posting's going to be light as we finish up. I think we'll rerun some of the old political posts to fill in the days. And yes, when we're in hiatus, I'll turn back to that writing.
@Sarah from Canada: This is the...I believe 3rd episode to feature a bad guy straight out of my real life...it's creepy and I want you to stop. Maple Leaf Foods and the Listeria outbreak anyone?? Anyway. I do actually have two questions this week: 1) does anyone actually want to do Eliot's job? Poor Christian kicking ass and taking many for the team... 2) If Leverage gets a 3rd season (crossing everything I've got that you do) do you think it would film in Portland again or would you maybe consider Vancouver, BC?? It's really nice here...looks a lot like Portland actually... 3) I lied...3 questions...is this show EVER going to air in Canada? I have been forced to resort to downloading episodes and that's just no way to enjoy my television! I have a 52" flat screen for a reason! a 17" laptop screen just ain't the same!
1.) No. End of day, Eliot's job is not much fun. Particularly in the Season Finale.
2.) We like Portland a LOT.
3.) Unfortunately, the Canadian television industry is in the middle of collapsing. So feel free to write a letter to the Movie Channel, but not much hope in the near future.
@Anonymous: Hmn, am I the only one who thought Eliot might have been messing with the rest of the team a little when he said he grew his own food and slept 90 minutes/night?
He was teasing. A little.
@Michelle: RE Area 52 Now.. is that just a strange happenstance, or are you or one of the writers extra geeky and had to slide a SG-1 reference in just for fun.
Happenstance.
@bluehex and Anonymous: Second, Eliot repeatedly teases Hardison about being a virgin. Initially I thought it was just teasing, but now it seems that Hardison is a bit too skittish about it. So, is Hardison really a virgin? / When did it start becoming a sign of freakishness in the media for a young adult (Hardison's, what, early 20s, right?) to be a virgin? It's not the most common thing anymore, but it's not exactly as rare as people make it out to be, either. btw, I am not a prude. I just think the "no sex" = "social retard" shorthand is kinda dumb.
We don't go into the details of the characters' love lives here, but Eliot would probably yank that particular geek chain whether it was true or not. And vice versa ("A bully's just a cowboy with low self esteem.") with Hardison's line of attack in their never-ending argument. Assume the answer is whatever makes the character more interesting to you.
@jer@nyquil.org: Who did Nate's close-up card handling?
In this one, Tim.
@Devinoch: And is someone going to point out this is the kind of thing that got him [Nate] in trouble when he was working insurance? (He's always seemed a little too job focused and not good at having fun...)
Oh, he'll figure that out soon enough on his own. We all trade one addiction for another...
@znachki: I've seen other comments from you that things have had to be trimmed. Do you often have "too much story" for the 40-45 minutes you have?
Yes, ordinarily our first cuts run 2-5 minutes longer than our alloted 42:30. Although our editors are top-notch, we do wind up leaving trimmings on the floor.
@Raligh: Sophie was complaining about not getting an on-stage role in the con - how does the team decide who plays what when it's not specifically related to one or another of their skill sets? Is it random? Case-by-case? Or does it pretty much depend on what you're planning on doing in the storyline of the episode, and, as such, is entirely based on writers' decisions rather than characters' decisions?
They stick to their skill-sets, but if an interesting character beat comes out of putting somebody of their pace, then we consider it. Usually we bend the story so that the role makes sense in alignment with the character beat -- for example, Sophie as the drama teacher in "The Fairy Godparents Job." In this case, Gina's RL pregnancy was beginning to become a factor in costuming and working on a bare stage.
@Maya: What was the deal with Sophie trying to make Nate go on a date with the client? Was she playing a con on him so he'd admit he has feelings for her? Or if that's not it then it was very OOC for Sophie IMO.
Two factors: they're in a place now where they know they screwed up what they might have had last year, and she's very worried that if he doesn't get out of his head -- no matter how -- he's going to spiral out. As we've seen in #207, though, the cool-down has only made them realize that there's something there, if not what they originally thought.
@JP Corkey: I loved the comedy flashback's triumphant return. Are we going to see more of those later this year?
When cutting for time and budget, off-story moments are the first to go. And those flashbacks are the platonic ideal of off-story moments. I think we got a better handle on the new structure and production conditions, so we should see more of them next season.
@Anonymous: just had a personal Leverage marathon where I re-watched the entire first season in the last two days, and it left me with a few general questions and comments 2. Nate's sobriety seems intrinsically linked to the amount of gel in his hair. It's an interesting quirk. 3. I thought I noticed Sophie checking Eliot out several times (almost whenever they had a conversation). Is she attracted to him, trying to make him interested in her (Sophie mentions that she likes to control her personal relationships, and it's easier to control a man who has a thing for you), or just enjoying the view? 4. I love that Hardison doesn't do anything his grandma said, "Don't do." He's adorable. 5. Is Hardison ever going to be in a position where he runs the con the way Nate or Sophie do? He seems to have some latent leadership abilities. Every time he has to play a character for a con, it's almost always a self-confident, ambitious, take-charge fellow. He's also likable and relates well to others. 6. Oh, and what does it say about Eliot's personality that he seems to be the only one who ever plays submissive, defeated characters during cons? His character in The Tap-Out Job, particularly.
2.) The gel cools his brain, and his drink-cravings. 3.) Nothing there as far as Sophie/Eliot goes. 4.) We should probably meet Nana at some point ... 5.) Hardison has enthusiasm but ... self-control issues. As we will see this week in #208. 6.) Never noticed that. I think it's more that he's so confident, he's comfortable luring people into a false sense of security.
Great questions, people! Next up, the question post for Ep #208, which would have been our winter season opener if your incessant harassment had not forced TNT to move it up, and we'll try to tackle #207 questions before Friday.
It was actually Tim who nagged me to get off the stick and get to updating the question blog posts. I can't escape it. Even the helicopter didn't distract him.
#206 was a light, comedic change-up. Our guest writer, M. Scott Veach, had come in as a freelancer and pitched a very different "magician" story than how the episode finally laid out. Coincidentally, Tim had mentioned that he'd love to play a magician sometime. I am loathe to do an episode even close to a freelance pitch without involving the writer -- and you gotta buy two a year anyway -- so we called Scott in and the story was room-broken. (Tell the truth, I was off banging away at Ep 207 for a chunk of it, so my contributions to the story are limited generally to the CEO-in-a-box run, and the hijacked phone gag). The room can take credit for how much you enjoyed the episode, and Scott did a remarkably fine job during his visit. Not easy, coming into a tiny room that hovers at a constant 85 degrees filled with people who've spent ten hours a day for the last year and a half sitting in those goddam chairs.
I'd done a series of these horrible "state-of-the-company" shows back when I was a stand-up -- including one where they announced layoffs just before I got on stage -- and Albert Kim had attended a bunch while he was working his Time-Warner day job. Once we had the con format, it was just a matter of assigning roles. FWIW, Hardison chose his role in the con based on his love of Jonathan Creek.
(Bonus trivia: Creek creator David Renwick also wrote One Foot in the Grave, the Brit show that Cosby was based on. Cosby is where Chris Downey and I had our first writing jobs.)
We had an evil food CEO on the "villains" wall, and a bit of research on your own will probably reveal where we wound up drawing our primary inspiration. Let's just say the "It's on the label" crack didn't come out of nowhere.
Okay, let's take a deep breath and dive in.
@LEah: Not sure if you saw this or not -- I'm sure Hardison already knows these tricks -- but they're talking about how to fake DNA results.
Cool link -- and that would have come in very very handy for #209. On the other hand, not being able to fake DNA results allowed us to use a character in an interesting way, so that worked out. Obstacles are our friends, in fiction.
@LEah: Not sure if you saw this or not -- I'm sure Hardison already knows these tricks -- but they're talking about how to fake DNA results.
Cool link -- and that would have come in very very handy for #209. On the other hand, not being able to fake DNA results allowed us to use a character in an interesting way, so that worked out. Obstacles are our friends, in fiction.
@Freelancer: I'm currently reading Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine right now, and I'm curious if any of the writers has also read it and if so, how much influence it has had in generating plots for our crew to solve.
I've read it, not sure who else on staff has. There tends to be a lot of redundant research, or even overlap in casual reading -- if you were the type of person we'd hire for the show, you;re the type of person who already has a copy of The Big Con on their nightstand.
@Stefan: When do the latter-half episodes air?
I believe we start airing the back 6 in the first or second week of January.
@marga templeton: now can you tell us how christian kane busted open his head???
Elevator fight -- turned his head too fast during a move and cracked his thick skull on the edge of the CEO-in-a-box.
@DHS, @Tom Galloway (and pretty much everybody else): 1) As mentioned, patents are filed with the US Patent Office and are publicly available. Heck, go to www.google.com/patents to search and read them. Trade secrets, on the other hand, are like the formula for Coca-Cola; never patented since you don't want it public and want to keep it to yourself after the point at which a patent would expire.
We can learn from this, young Spec Monkeys. Now, the word "patent" is something the layman has a specific, instinctive sense of based on years of half-remembered plots and new stories. "patents" are worth millions. "Patents" can be stolen. Decades-long legal cases revolve around "patents."
"Trade secrets", on the other hand, is a commonly used metaphor with no legal or financial connotation, even if it does indeed has a specific legal definition.
Let's just say we had this conversation a few times with suited humans:
Us: "We're stealing a company's trade secrets."
Them: "Ah, nice. What are they called?"
Us: "What are what called?"
Them: "Trade secrets."
Us: "What about them?"
Them: "What's the technical legal term for trade secrets?"
Us: "Trade secrets."
Them: "Yes, those. What do you call them?"
Us: "Third base."
For young people, here.
I've read it, not sure who else on staff has. There tends to be a lot of redundant research, or even overlap in casual reading -- if you were the type of person we'd hire for the show, you;re the type of person who already has a copy of The Big Con on their nightstand.
@Stefan: When do the latter-half episodes air?
I believe we start airing the back 6 in the first or second week of January.
@marga templeton: now can you tell us how christian kane busted open his head???
Elevator fight -- turned his head too fast during a move and cracked his thick skull on the edge of the CEO-in-a-box.
@DHS, @Tom Galloway (and pretty much everybody else): 1) As mentioned, patents are filed with the US Patent Office and are publicly available. Heck, go to www.google.com/patents to search and read them. Trade secrets, on the other hand, are like the formula for Coca-Cola; never patented since you don't want it public and want to keep it to yourself after the point at which a patent would expire.
We can learn from this, young Spec Monkeys. Now, the word "patent" is something the layman has a specific, instinctive sense of based on years of half-remembered plots and new stories. "patents" are worth millions. "Patents" can be stolen. Decades-long legal cases revolve around "patents."
"Trade secrets", on the other hand, is a commonly used metaphor with no legal or financial connotation, even if it does indeed has a specific legal definition.
Let's just say we had this conversation a few times with suited humans:
Us: "We're stealing a company's trade secrets."
Them: "Ah, nice. What are they called?"
Us: "What are what called?"
Them: "Trade secrets."
Us: "What about them?"
Them: "What's the technical legal term for trade secrets?"
Us: "Trade secrets."
Them: "Yes, those. What do you call them?"
Us: "Third base."
For young people, here.
When confronted with this problem, we did what you always should do -- use the term most of the audience will understand, and answer any questions on the blog.
(In retrospect, that might have been a funny Hardison/Eliot scene ...)
@Tom Galloway (and @Codger, this is close to yours): You've got Eliot and Hardison in the server room. Erik with an evil k shows up alone...and their response is to hide, run, and have to access the servers from another floor/room. Um, given they only need a short time and Erik's alone, why can't Eliot just take out and restrain Erik until Hardison gets the files? This stands out particularly since the team then, well, take out and restrain the CEO for an extended period.
Plan A is always try to get in and out without the bad guy knowing. So, you know, headlocking him is probably not Plan A. This episode is an example of their plan falling apart step by step (not something we do all that often, but it's a good change-up) so the end-game is in no way what they went through those front doors intending to do. That's why Eliot says "I can't believe we pulled this one off ..." at the end.
@Tom Galloway (geesh, Tom, get on the fun train :P ): At the end, the CEO certainly seems willing to listen and believe Jameson very quickly and completely; I don't think they had any time to show him any evidence, which was deleted anyway. And he slams down Erik immediately. So, what was stopping the easy approach of getting Jameson in contact with the CEO to start with?
Lengthy three-way phone call/blackmail sequence truncated for spiffy exit. Mostly because I had way, way too much fun in the writer's room delivering the outraged line "They put me in a BOX!" over and over again.
@Jocelyn: Okay, we learned in The Beantown Bailout Job that Hardison purchased Nate's building so does that mean everyone lives in the building? Or does the team have secondary places of residence in town cause I'd like to see these vegetables Eliot speaks of.
Answered here.
@Codger (you again?): Where was Parker intending to go when she jumped off the elevator, since everything they wanted to access was above them?
They thought they had an hour to go get the files. When it turns out they didn't, she had to get back downstairs post-haste. Jumping for that, not the break-in.
@Rosalyn: This is a really cosmetic question, but why was Hardison wearing that letterman jacket at the magic show?
In Hardison and Parker's minds, that's what normal human couples look like. I know, I know. Scary.
@Casey: Love the show but you need to slow down and do more research. Besides the patent issue, and the already mentioned "can't rappel from a non-fixed point" issue, I had another problem with the rappeling scene: Where did the inertia go? Why was Parker able to land so lightly at the bottom, with less of a physical jolt than Hardison had when he fell maybe 1/20th the distance? The show wants to be smart, or at least be considered smart, and wants to appeal to a smart audience, you can't let elementary factual errors build up like that.
Luckily, we're really aiming for entertaining rather than smart.
@Save-vs-DM: Question: was that poking bit between Parker and Eliot improvised at all? It had the feeling of being improvised.
I believe it was improv .. improv-ved?
@Gordon: 1. Is the color orange turning into the Michael's yogurt in-joke? First we get Sophie's orange jewelry and handbag, then Parker's orange tee-shirt, and then I think I caught a peek at orange shoes on Sophie this week. Orange is for more than soda this season, it appears. 2. Parker went up to help hack the computer with Parker and Hardison, but then rappelled back down before Nate called her back down. Did we have an editing error, or did I have a Scooby-Doo moment? 3.) Was Nate's introduction as the magician a goof on the ringmaster in Torchwood's episode "Out of the Rain" or am I reading too much into these things? 4.) WHAT Dr. Strangelove references? I'm still working on Blackadder from last week, and no one will put me out of my misery.
1.) Dammit, you found the color coded messages. You and your friends should buy every episode online and then every DVD to unravel the ARG we've hidden in the show.
2.) I'm going to say, without a review, the sequence went a.) Erik announces he's not talking b.) Parker prepares to rappel c.) Nate summons her d.) rappelling. Could be wrong.
3.) Reading too much into it, but nice reference. BTW, has it occurred to anyone that Captain Jack just doesn't much like children?
4.) It's Dr. Strange, and we mean Clea.
@Zed283: Does Hardison go to DefCon every year or just 2008? The cell phone wifi package and the rfid badge trick were both straight out of the presentations from that year.
Oh, are those actual hacker tricks? (We don't usually research anything.) Not only does Hardison go, he has won "Spot the Fed" three years running.
@Erik: Being an Erik with a K it was nice to see the more neglected spelling get it's day in the sun, but I resent the fact that you've portrayed us as all being completely evil! At my worst, I'd say I'm no more than 50% evil and average somewhere around 30-35% most days. This is how stereotypes start :(
Unfortunately, we must assume you are lying about that 50%, as you spell your name with a k. How evil of you.
@USRaider: My questions are: The subject of "The Top Hat Job" is highly conceivable as a real life happening. Has there been a situation yet that the subject for an episode was either not used by you and the writers or turned down by The Powers That Be because it is too real? Second, Hardison (Aldis) can get quite technical on his explanations of how he is using his devices. Is this like "MacGyver" where a key element of his electronic knowledge is left out so it can't be duplicated by...oh, I don't know...a viewer?
1.) Nope., they leave us alone. We are self-regulating. Seriously, it's a bit odd how far they let us run.
2.) Damn, we should really do that. Whoops. Although I think in the internet age, it's hard to argue that would be even remotely effective.
@Anonymous: Anyway, questions. 1.) Am I correct in my assumption that, aside from the Leverage team, Eliot mostly works as a mercenary for various governments? 2.) Also, are we going to learn about any of the team members' political views in the future? Parker probably doesn't care, but I think the rest of the team could have some interesting takes on things. I wouldn't be surprised if Eliot belonged to CPUSA, actually. And I get a Ron Paul-supporter vibe from Hardison.
1.) Yes. I'm not sure the line's still in #212, but at one point he mentions he's "taken a lot of jobs standing in Embassy basements."
2.) No. You don't know how Doc Savage votes, I see no reason to know how Nate Ford votes.
@SueN: Now, my question: For season 3 (and we all know there's gonna be a season 3, right? RIGHT?!), can the team steal a rodeo? Pleeeeeze? Nate back in his cowboy persona, Sophie as the rodeo queen, Parker having to interact with livestock, Hardison completely out of his element, and Eliot riding a bull (or maybe fighting it). In chaps.
... sorry for the delay. But my conversation with Kane where I called him at home and asked if he'd mind wearing chaps for me did not go particularly well. Aside from that, we've kicked around a rodeo show, so we'll see.
@Anonymous: I was reading through your answers to previous questions, and saw that Eliot apparently killed the abusive dad in "The Order 23 Job." ... Anyway, my point was; Has Eliot killed anyone on-screen during the show? And how many off-screen/implied kills (only while he's working with Leverage, it's pretty clear he's racked up a lot on his own) has he performed?
I was just joking about Eliot killing the dad. Eliot did not kill the abusive dad. Repeat -- Eliot did not break into the man's house, put him in a sleeper hold, and then jam a pretzel down his throat and into his trachea to fake a choking death. Did not.
Eliot has not killed anyone on-screen. His off-screen body count is not excessive.
@SueN: So far we've seen every member of the team rappel except Eliot. So, have we finally found something Christian won't do?
You realize now he's going to bug us to do this until we let him. Great.
@RichardJensen: As an old-school (Pre-Leverage.) fan of the blog, I've really missed political stuff. I know you've been cutting back on it because of the show but will you be getting back to it end of season?
You know what? Posting's going to be light as we finish up. I think we'll rerun some of the old political posts to fill in the days. And yes, when we're in hiatus, I'll turn back to that writing.
@Sarah from Canada: This is the...I believe 3rd episode to feature a bad guy straight out of my real life...it's creepy and I want you to stop. Maple Leaf Foods and the Listeria outbreak anyone?? Anyway. I do actually have two questions this week: 1) does anyone actually want to do Eliot's job? Poor Christian kicking ass and taking many for the team... 2) If Leverage gets a 3rd season (crossing everything I've got that you do) do you think it would film in Portland again or would you maybe consider Vancouver, BC?? It's really nice here...looks a lot like Portland actually... 3) I lied...3 questions...is this show EVER going to air in Canada? I have been forced to resort to downloading episodes and that's just no way to enjoy my television! I have a 52" flat screen for a reason! a 17" laptop screen just ain't the same!
1.) No. End of day, Eliot's job is not much fun. Particularly in the Season Finale.
2.) We like Portland a LOT.
3.) Unfortunately, the Canadian television industry is in the middle of collapsing. So feel free to write a letter to the Movie Channel, but not much hope in the near future.
@Anonymous: Hmn, am I the only one who thought Eliot might have been messing with the rest of the team a little when he said he grew his own food and slept 90 minutes/night?
He was teasing. A little.
@Michelle: RE Area 52 Now.. is that just a strange happenstance, or are you or one of the writers extra geeky and had to slide a SG-1 reference in just for fun.
Happenstance.
@bluehex and Anonymous: Second, Eliot repeatedly teases Hardison about being a virgin. Initially I thought it was just teasing, but now it seems that Hardison is a bit too skittish about it. So, is Hardison really a virgin? / When did it start becoming a sign of freakishness in the media for a young adult (Hardison's, what, early 20s, right?) to be a virgin? It's not the most common thing anymore, but it's not exactly as rare as people make it out to be, either. btw, I am not a prude. I just think the "no sex" = "social retard" shorthand is kinda dumb.
We don't go into the details of the characters' love lives here, but Eliot would probably yank that particular geek chain whether it was true or not. And vice versa ("A bully's just a cowboy with low self esteem.") with Hardison's line of attack in their never-ending argument. Assume the answer is whatever makes the character more interesting to you.
@jer@nyquil.org: Who did Nate's close-up card handling?
In this one, Tim.
@Devinoch: And is someone going to point out this is the kind of thing that got him [Nate] in trouble when he was working insurance? (He's always seemed a little too job focused and not good at having fun...)
Oh, he'll figure that out soon enough on his own. We all trade one addiction for another...
@znachki: I've seen other comments from you that things have had to be trimmed. Do you often have "too much story" for the 40-45 minutes you have?
Yes, ordinarily our first cuts run 2-5 minutes longer than our alloted 42:30. Although our editors are top-notch, we do wind up leaving trimmings on the floor.
@Raligh: Sophie was complaining about not getting an on-stage role in the con - how does the team decide who plays what when it's not specifically related to one or another of their skill sets? Is it random? Case-by-case? Or does it pretty much depend on what you're planning on doing in the storyline of the episode, and, as such, is entirely based on writers' decisions rather than characters' decisions?
They stick to their skill-sets, but if an interesting character beat comes out of putting somebody of their pace, then we consider it. Usually we bend the story so that the role makes sense in alignment with the character beat -- for example, Sophie as the drama teacher in "The Fairy Godparents Job." In this case, Gina's RL pregnancy was beginning to become a factor in costuming and working on a bare stage.
@Maya: What was the deal with Sophie trying to make Nate go on a date with the client? Was she playing a con on him so he'd admit he has feelings for her? Or if that's not it then it was very OOC for Sophie IMO.
Two factors: they're in a place now where they know they screwed up what they might have had last year, and she's very worried that if he doesn't get out of his head -- no matter how -- he's going to spiral out. As we've seen in #207, though, the cool-down has only made them realize that there's something there, if not what they originally thought.
@JP Corkey: I loved the comedy flashback's triumphant return. Are we going to see more of those later this year?
When cutting for time and budget, off-story moments are the first to go. And those flashbacks are the platonic ideal of off-story moments. I think we got a better handle on the new structure and production conditions, so we should see more of them next season.
@Anonymous: just had a personal Leverage marathon where I re-watched the entire first season in the last two days, and it left me with a few general questions and comments 2. Nate's sobriety seems intrinsically linked to the amount of gel in his hair. It's an interesting quirk. 3. I thought I noticed Sophie checking Eliot out several times (almost whenever they had a conversation). Is she attracted to him, trying to make him interested in her (Sophie mentions that she likes to control her personal relationships, and it's easier to control a man who has a thing for you), or just enjoying the view? 4. I love that Hardison doesn't do anything his grandma said, "Don't do." He's adorable. 5. Is Hardison ever going to be in a position where he runs the con the way Nate or Sophie do? He seems to have some latent leadership abilities. Every time he has to play a character for a con, it's almost always a self-confident, ambitious, take-charge fellow. He's also likable and relates well to others. 6. Oh, and what does it say about Eliot's personality that he seems to be the only one who ever plays submissive, defeated characters during cons? His character in The Tap-Out Job, particularly.
2.) The gel cools his brain, and his drink-cravings. 3.) Nothing there as far as Sophie/Eliot goes. 4.) We should probably meet Nana at some point ... 5.) Hardison has enthusiasm but ... self-control issues. As we will see this week in #208. 6.) Never noticed that. I think it's more that he's so confident, he's comfortable luring people into a false sense of security.
Great questions, people! Next up, the question post for Ep #208, which would have been our winter season opener if your incessant harassment had not forced TNT to move it up, and we'll try to tackle #207 questions before Friday.
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